WHAT’S the difference between a newspaper reporter and a television journalist?

Of course, every newspaper reporter says us lot on the telly are vain. And they’re right. We have to be.

I’m not very good at this. If you see a reporter on TV with a crumpled shirt and his tie all skew-whiff, the chances are he’s called Richard Butt.

I’ve never got the hang of looking at myself in a mirror before doing pieces to camera. I’m not a naturally dapper chap.

This is bad not just because of vanity. It’s bad because, instead of listening to my pearls of wisdom about what’s going on in the big, bad world, all the viewers are thinking is: ‘What a scruffbag’. Which is fair enough.

To avoid being a distraction, we have to be smartish. After all, it’s not supposed to be about us.

In fact, I’m so bad at getting my tie right, I’ve decided to ditch it altogether, unless I really have to wear one. Meanwhile, what’s a newspaper reporter like? Well, they spend up to 90 per cent of their time at desks, making phone calls or reading emails and then writing up stories from them.

In spite of what you might see on TV dramas, most reporting is done remotely.

Photographers go out and actually see people when they take their pictures, while their scribbling colleagues in the newsroom are generally found at the end of a telephone, often not meeting the subjects of their stories.

This means they don’t have to shave or wear clean clothes, their lower limbs can atrophy and they need not be on much more than nodding terms with personal hygiene. A few are, of course.

But, because it’s more efficient, it also means they have a lot of time to dig for stories, cultivate contacts and break news.

On the telly, it’s different. Doing stories for TV takes time. We have to ring people up, hear what they have to say and then persuade them to say it all over again in front of a camera.

Then we have to film it. This takes, if I might dip into the Seventies for a moment, yonks.

We’ve also got to remember our lines, spout off in front of the camera ourselves to tell the story (I’m a 17-take wonder) and then get back and edit the whole thing in time for the 5pm news.

In short, telly is a faff.

I recently rang a priest about a service he was conducting to remember a teenager who had died.

I really wanted someone to say something kind about him.

The priest spoke on and on with those sorts of sentiments on the phone, but for some reason was too shy to appear on the telly, which was a great shame because I’m sure it would have given some solace to the family involved.

A newspaper reporter would have got some great quotes and could have pulled a picture of the priest from the file. Job done.

As it was, I had a newspaper story, not a television story.

Having me on screen saying “the priest said nice things but wouldn’t say them in person” was not anywhere near as credible as having him on camera.

It’s not surprising then, to learn that newspaper reporters break more, big, exclusive stories than television or radio.